For one art history alumna, Duke provided deep exposure to Latin American art and history that has fueled her graduate work.
Susanna Temkin, Trinity ’07 (pictured), is now a Ph.D. candidate studying art history at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Temkin is blending her majors from Duke—art history and Spanish—to advance her exploration of Latin American art, with a focus on Cuba.
Temkin also works in a gallery called Cecilia de Torres Ltd in the Soho district of New York City. There, she works on the catalogue of the Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García. She has also worked directly with contemporary artists by publishing interviews and curating exhibitions. Her exhibition featuring the sculptures of Argentinean-American artist Marta Chilindron will be held at the Institute of Fine Arts in November.
“At the gallery, I love being able to work directly with artists and actually see the art that I’m learning about in person,” Temkin said.
At Duke, Temkin cultivated her interest in Latin American modernism, with the guidance of Esther Gabara, E. Blake Byrne associate professor of romance studies and art, art history & visual studies. She wrote her senior thesis on the art of the Spanish Golden Age (1492-1659), featuring such great artists as El Greco, Diego Velazquez and Francisco de Zurbaran. A flourishing period of Spanish arts and literature that produced works such as El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, the Golden Age coincided with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsberg dynasty.
Temkin credits her Duke education as preparing her well for graduate study. “Many of my peers focusing on Latin American art at the graduate level don’t have any background in the topic,” Temkin said. “At Duke, however, I had this great introduction to different ideas and projects I can now work on as a graduate student.”
Temkin saw new opportunities open up for arts students at Duke while she was an undergraduate. The Nasher Museum of Art opened on Duke’s campus in 2005.
“The opening of the Nasher was really essential to my Duke experience,” Temkin said. “It generated excitement amongst all students, not just art history majors.”
As a member of the Nasher Student Advisory Board, Temkin worked with Sarah Schroth, who is now Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum. Her work in the Nasher was funded by the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, which supports undergraduate research for those pursuing careers in higher education.
She noted that the Nasher provided her with exposure to different career paths for an art historian, and helped her decide that she was interested in pursuing a museum profession, perhaps as a curator. She said the Nasher’s opening cultivated a larger awareness of the arts on campus.
“When I was at Duke, the arts were building momentum. But I often felt like I was probably the only art history major in any room, surrounded by engineers and pre-meds,” she said. “When I came back from my five-year reunion it just seems like the arts are such an integral part of Duke. The feeling has changed a lot since I was a student.”